Canada boasts one of the world’s highest assisted-death rates, supposedly enabling the terminally ill to die with dignity. However, this suicide program increasingly resembles a dystopian replacement for care services, exchanging social welfare for euthanasia.

In 2022, Global News said the quiet part out loud: poverty is driving disabled Canadians to consider MAiD. Those “some” who are driven to assisted death because of poverty or an inability to access adequate care deserve to live with dignity and with the resources they need to live as they wish. They should never, ever feel the pressure to choose to die because our social welfare institutions are starved and our health care system has been vandalized through years of austerity and poor management.

Given the way our institutions and economic and political elite create and perpetuate poverty in Canada, particularly among disabled people, we should be particularly sensitive to the implications of the country’s MaiD regime for those who are often ignored when warning about the dangers of the law.

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While MAiD may be defensible as a means for individuals to exercise personal choice in how they live and how they die when facing illness and pain, it is plainly indefensible when state-induced austerity and mismanagement leads to people choosing to end their lives that have been made unnecessarily miserable. In short, we are killing people for being poor and disabled, which is horrifying.

  • enkers
    101·
    7 months ago

    It also includes a man whose application “hearing loss,” and whose brother says he was “basically put to death.”

    My grandmother was a painter and lost her vision. She was no longer able to do what she loved. In her last several years, every time we’d celebrate her birthday, she’d wonder why she was still alive. You can’t look at MAiD requests simply, because every person has unique reasons that keep them going. Some people can bounce back from severe loss, and some cannot, or choose not to.

    While I agree with a lot of points the article is making, I think we need to be calling for more critical review of MAiD applications, and increased oversight, not an outright reversal of the program. Those whom are applying due to lack of social safety nets need to be denied, and, most importantly, helped to find the resources required for them to be able to live a dignified and meaningful life if they so wish.

    • sbvOPEnglish
      10·
      7 months ago

      I’m sorry for your loss.

      I don’t think MAiD is the problem - it’s our eroding social safety net that is the issue.

      People should be able to end their lives with dignity at a time of their choosing. But they should be provided with the support they need to keep living as comfortably as they want.

      • enkers
        6·
        7 months ago

        It was quite a long time ago, so the pain has long since faded, but thank you for the kind words. (:

        And to the rest of your comment, I 100% agree.

        I also think this is an important discussion that Canadians need to be having.